Okay sir. I was not born back in the 1977 :)
but I do recall my late grandfather (who worked as an engineer in Steam Loco Shed Jabalpur) telling me GK was a Superfast long time back (it was downgraded to Express in early 90's I guess). I do not know, when Ratnagiri stopped skipping Katni but back in mid-2000's it certainly had a Katni halt. May be wrong here.
Satna...
more... has always been a point for crew change of almost every train. ET ALD is unusual for having short haul crews. ET, JBP, STA are all crew change points (which are relatively short distances). Only LTT-ALD Duronto when introduced had single crew for ET-STA skipping JBP. For, LTT-PNBE Superfast it was needed as the next crew change would happen at Mughal Sarai
please wait...Translate to EnglishAlright man. So, back in the day, my grandpa used to say that the GK train used to be like lightning fast but then it got a bit slower and turned into an Express train in the 90s. I'm not exactly sure when the Ratnagiri train stopped skipping Katni, but around the mid-2000s, it definitely made a pit stop there. Satna has always been a spot where train crews switch out, like a common thing for pretty much every train. But it's kinda strange how ET ALD has shorter crew distances compared to other routes. ET, JBP, STA are all crew changing spots over there. There was this one time when the LTT-ALD Duronto train was introduced and it just went from ET to STA without stopping at JBP for the crew change. And for the LTT-PNBE Superfast, they needed to switch crews at Mughal Sarai since it's a long haul.